Tâigael bookcover

Tâigael

Stories from Taiwanese and Gaelic
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Description

In a remote Taiwanese temple, a goddess of saliva vanishes without a trace. One Hogmanay in Inverness, a family party is disrupted by an unexpected guest. On the streets of Taipei, an elderly prophet foretells an attack on the subway. On the way home from her day in court, a woman finds a sheep tangled in the roadside brambles.

Four writers, four stories and four languages. Tâigael is a first-of-its-kind collaborative writing and translation project, bringing together writers from Scotland and Taiwan, to explore language, translation and culture. These four stories by Elissa Hunter-Dorans (Scotland), Kiú-kiong 玖芎 (Taiwan), Lisa MacDonald (Scotland) and Naomi Sím (Taiwan) cross between languages and cultures to speak of things unspoken, and to find new and surprising connections.

Taiwanese (Tâi-gí) and Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) are languages that have been historically marginalised and suppressed. Tâigael presents two newly commissioned short stories in Gaelic, and two in Taiwanese, or Tâi-gí. And then it translates these stories between the two languages, via Mandarin and English. Each story is published in all four languages, to allow the largest possible audience.

Product Details

PublisherWind&bones
Publish DateJune 16, 2025
Pages130
LanguageEnglish
TypeBook iconPaperback / softback
EAN/UPC9781999376420
Dimensions8.5 X 5.5 X 0.3 inches | 0.3 pounds

About the Author

Hannah Stevens is a writer from the UK, currently based in Taiwan. She is co-director of Wind&Bones Books. Hannah has a PhD in creative writing from the University of Leicester, and her first short story collection, In their Absence was published in 2021. She is currently working on her next collection, On the Bodies of Strangers, for which she was shortlisted for the W&A Working Class Writers' Prize 2022. Hannah has been writer in residence at the Sofia Literature and Translation House, and also at the Taiwan Literature Base.
Will Buckingham is a writer, philosopher and translator from the UK, currently based in Taiwan. Along with Hannah Stevens, he co-directs Wind&Bones Books. Will has a PhD in philosophy, and he writes fiction, nonfiction and for children. His most recent book is Hello, Stranger: How We Find Connection in a Divided World (Granta 2022), which was a BBC Radio4 Book of the Week. He, too, has been writer in residence at the Sofia Literature and Translation House, and at the Taiwan Literature Base. He is on the faculty at Parami University, Myanmar.

Reviews

"I am grateful for the publication of this book. A mother tongue is the root of culture, and a culture that loses its mother tongue is like a plant without roots. This book will greatly inspire the promotion of language equality and literary translation."

-Li Yuan 李遠, Taiwan Minister for Culture

"In this imaginative and profoundly original book, two seemingly distant worlds are brought into resonant dialogue through their suppressed languages, enduring myths, and local beliefs. Scotland and Taiwan, small democracies with rich and complex histories, emerge here as sites of cultural resilience and deep-rooted memory. Beautifully translated across four languages, these evocative and subtle stories show what it means to seek out connections that might bind us more closely."

-Michelle Kuo 郭怡慧, author of Reading With Patrick

"Four thoughtful and thought-provoking stories in conversation across languages and cultures-how exciting, and how necessary! This marvellous anthology, full of grace and wit, shows how writers and indeed whole literatures thrive when in contact with other voices."

-Garry MacKenzie: author of Scotland: a Literary Guide for Travellers

"Here, the scattered voices of Taiwanese and Scottish Gaelic meet. Stories rooted in our mother tongues that glow like the sunlight of early spring-these are tales that, in their gentleness, quietly burn."

-Tân Lêkun 陳麗君, professor of Taiwanese literature, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan

"Languages are the vehicles of culture; they carry the spirit of their origins from generation to generation. Tâigael is an innovative work created by writers from Taiwan and Scotland, presenting culture-based stories in four languages and five writing systems. It is an important vehicle that brings life to these beautiful cultures worth preserving."

-Wen Ruoqiao 温若喬, translator and poet

"Tâigael: Stories from Taiwanese & Gaelic draws parallels between two marginalised territories, Scotland and Taiwan, showing how communication between minority-language writers is not only possible but desirable. A unique quadrille of stories and tellers."

-Colin Bramwell, poet and translator

"A new generation of writers from two countries writing in their mother tongues-Taiwanese and Gaelic-allowing languages that are less often read to engage in an unprecedented dialogue of literature and culture, with translation as a medium. This anthology adds diverse voices and colours to world literature, making its significance particularly profound."

-Xiang Yang 向陽, poet

"Stories told well and without fear invite us in, so we can travel in the depths of their inspiration. In this innovative collection, East and West become travel partners, opening crucial doors between Taiwanese and Gaelic creativity. What a lovely partnership!"

-Martin MacIntyre, author, Bàrd and storyteller

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